Shroud
by tiedyedseashells
Summary: But even Lucifer had once been God's favourite archangel. Lucifer knows what it feels like, to ardently adore someone so fiercely, that you would follow them straight to perdition, just to get your fix. I fall to my scraped knees and beg for the answer to leak from his decaying teeth; iridescent black oil trickles down the filed canines. Which of these is stronger: guilt or love?


I always thought I was a good person.

I revived a farm singlehandedly. I recycle. I take in stray animals. I eat my vegetables, and grow them myself, no less.

Even when I was younger: I did all my problem sums, marked out in glaring red by my mother's bony fingers. I kneeled by my bed and said my prayers, even though I didn't know who I was praying to, and who I was praying for. My skirt always hit my knees; two balls of peach yarn woven tightly together.

I wanted to believe I was a good person.

* * *

We lust between sheets; the ivory linen moans and coils her back. His blonde hair – that evanescent shade of shredded carrots and silk gold – skirts against my wispy eyelashes. We are skin and skin and skin. Bones and flesh and soul.

His lips are cracking at the side, threatening to reveal the ruby abyss underneath. I never dare to stare for too long; I believe I'll fall and forget how to return.

Constellations wind themselves behind eyelids. They chant incantations about Orion's belt: crumbling. Losing control. The Milky Way bursts into indigo and violet and blinding, blinding light. Honey and cream seeps from my locks, splayed against the pearl pillows.

And suddenly, we are just hot breath and tender grazes and heads against collarbones. Palpitating heartbeats and fluttering fingers and guilt so thick, it drips through the air.

Gray has eyes that could cut clean through bones: diamond and ice. Sapphire shards that could pierce a jugular vein and leave the choking blood gushing. In the secret shroud of night, they're clearer than ever.

"What's on your mind?" His voice is waxed with years of smoking, nicotine and tobacco having clung onto the inner lining by the time he turned twenty-four, nestling their blackened bodies in the arms of their gruff lover.

I lift my fingers up to trace the outline of his jaw, his closely shaved stubble pressing delicately against my clumsy digits. Sometimes, I wonder if I can reach in, try to reason with the tar plastered to his vocal chords: he quit years ago, why do you still stay?

And then I realize that the tar and I have more in common that I thought.

A chipped tooth presses itself into my bottom lip, as nervous apprehension gets stuck in my trachea.

"Are we bad people?" I garner the courage to breathe, drawing my eyes shut and hoping the stillness of night won't congeal the tragedy of conscience.

His gemstone eyes flicker over my features, and I press my lips against his, hooking a naked limb across his hips. His calloused hands press into my thigh, cradle the back of my head; his thumb rubs against the delectable spot right behind my ear, just how he knows I like it.

We break apart, and it is all I can do, not to kiss him again. He's a drug; he sucks you in and swallows you whole.

"I don't know," Gray murmurs as he trails his searing lips along my neck. He burns right through the skin, but he never leaves a mark. We're smarter than that. "Maybe we're good people," he brushes my bangs out of my eyes, gazing into the velvety azure sky, "who do bad things."

Mary and Kai flitter through our minds; our respective spouses both sleeping innocently at home, none the wiser about how their partners are entangled in the arms of another.

"You know, Mason drew a picture of you today," I tell Gray, while wafting dreamy fingers through his downy strands, irresistibly ruffled. He lies on his side, facing me, bare chest lifting and falling with each quickly stabilizing breath.

Mason. That's my son. _My son_. Kai's child. Yes, I, Claire, am scum of the earth. The human embodiment of a bag of faeces, left on my husband's porch, drenched in vodka and set ablaze.

Crackling magenta and whimpering at Gray's touch.

"How did I look?" he enquires, chapped lips tugging up ever so slightly; a rare sight for the perpetually frowning blacksmith.

"It was pretty accurate actually," I pretend to muse, resting my temple against the dip above his clavicle, listening to his pulse whisper, _come here,_ with every steady throb. I grin sneakily, baring a sharpened canine, "Meaning you looked awful."

"Idiot," he swats me away jestingly, as I burst into a wide smile – the one reserved just for him and the night – and he pounces on me, digging his large fingers into my sides. Giggles erupt from my maraschino cherry lips. Sprinkles on ice cream. A child's coveted fairy bread. The tickles snake up my spine and I struggle to gasp for air.

I manage to roll atop of him, grabbing hold of his palms and nailing them against his chuckling head. I bring my lips down upon his, and for that moment, there is no sin or Satan or solitude. There is only Heaven and angels and hearts made of rose petals. My tongue slips past his and my body melts into him. There is no Kai or Mary or Mason or Daniel – that's Gray's child – and all we know is his hands on my hips and pouring warmth and breath hitched in throats.

For right now, we are two souls intertwined, enrapture and bliss and _love_, and devouring every damned second.

* * *

"Claire, honey, wake up." I adore the way the nickname _honey_ slips past his lips so naturally; I want to slather it in glistening berries and fluffy whipped cream.

My sleep-deprived eyes pry themselves open, wincing as the early dawn light shimmers through the crack between drawn curtains; jade green wool. I mumble something incoherently before my vision lands on the clock. _Five-twenty. _

"Mm," I groan stubbornly, burying my head in his chest. He smells of musk and heated metals and something else. Something indefinable.

"Come on," he purrs coaxingly into my ear, his words tip-toeing tantalizingly along my earlobes, "We've got to get going."

I send a full-fledged pout in his direction, quivering bottom lip gleaming in the rising sun, baby blues glistening like the ocean's surface. Strawberry red speckles his cheeks, as he glances away from me bashfully.

"Are you blushing?" I point out redundantly, poking a roughened fingertip into the side of his face, right below where his cheekbones swoop inwards.

"Shut up," Gray growls, embarrassment in full force. He grabs hold of my wrists, nuzzling his lips against my neck, and I am rendered completely powerless.

Before I know it, his blistered fingers are pulling my plaid shirt over my sloping shoulders, knuckles brushing teasingly against ribs as he fastens the translucent marbled buttons. We sit up, reality quickly bleeding into the creases of our eyes.

I softly sweep his fringe out of the way, as I place his trademark cap on his head, hiding the disarray that is his hair. I involuntarily bite my kiss-stained lip, admiring how innocuously cute he looks.

"What?" he questions, noticing my transfixion with his face, while simultaneously lifting my calf and slipping my overalls over my ankles. The folds where they end embed themselves in the heavy denim.

"Nothing," my head shakes. I inwardly chastise myself for acting like a love-struck teenager, despite turning twenty-eight this year. I zip his camel-coloured jacket up, marveling at how domestic this scene is.

Meanwhile, our real partners are at home, on the cusp of awakening. Setting us against the clock, in a race to sneak back into bed without them knowing.

His cherry soda lips tug up on one side, the telltale sign that he's concealing a smirk. I pinch his cheek jestingly. In response, he wraps his muscular arms around my waist and pulls me in for one last kiss. Gray is all cottony clouds and falling fantasies and dozy dreams.

"Alright, time to go," I bemoan, rubbing my palms over my face, inadvertently tugging on the skin. My feet touch the ground, and reality sinks in. Soaking into my veins like a hanging noose.

"See you tonight," he offers in reply, lacing his fingers through mine and giving them a squeeze as we stop just before the door. I lean my head against the oak frame, lifting my eyes to meet his.

"Yeah."

We share the look that both of us know like the back of our hands: we know what's coming, and we both crave and dread it.

"I love you," he whispers. Stardust and gunpowder settles in our lungs.

"I love you too." They mix in the wafting oxygen, forming a dangerous cocktail. The vapours of betrayal are enough to choke on. The ardour leaves us drunk.

I slip away first, out of the mountaintop cottage we use for our nightly escapes. The sun stares knowingly at me, threatening to expose all our secrets if I don't make it home in time. Boots mush against dewy forest floor, damp soil casting judgment and muttering to itself.

I turn back one last time, catching Gray just as he's lacing up his work boots. He smiles tenderly at me. My heart swells and lifts my lips upwards. I smile back, before continuing on my way.

We act like we're young lovers, meeting up at a hotel for a midnight rendezvous, before sneaking off to our houses to creep past parents or disapproving roommates.

But we're not.

We're two adults who cheat on their partners, and go home in the morning to our loving husband or wife and children.

Here is the truth: we are not good people.

* * *

I creak open my house door, casting a quick glance across the room. Kai rests peacefully on his side of the bed, tanned fingers reaching for where my figure should be. Reaching for something that isn't there.

Mason clutches his blanket – pale eggshell blue – to his chest, tiny toes peeking out from beneath the woolly fabric. I hurriedly change into my nightgown, raking frantic fingers through my tangled mass of hair and slide into our marital bed.

As if that meant a damn thing anymore. Gray and I had taken that word, sacred and blessed and drenched in the holiest of waters, and thrown it into tangling flames. The vermillion inferno engulfed the pure term, spitting it out as tarnished and fouled.

_I do_ tasted like gamy cement at the back of our throats.

Kai's thick eyelashes stir as he begins to awaken, the mocha satin curtain lifting to reveal his rich chocolate eyes. Dark praline, seventy percent cocoa. The liquid core oozing out of a perfectly baked molten cake.

"What're you doing, babe?" he mumbles messily, bringing his fist to rub the sleep out of the inner corners of his eyes. His fingers are laced with remnants of the occasional burn, splotches of espresso on his coffee skin.

"Just thinking."

"About?" he grins sleepily, white incisors appearing from behind his plush lips. Daggers stab through my chest. Air deserts me for a better lover.

A more loyal lover.

"You," I lie straight through my teeth. The air snorts depreciatively, rolling its ethereal eyes. Kai's grin grows to a complete beam, thousand-watts bright. He plants a kiss on my lips as his thumb and index finger gently hold my chin. I used to love when he did that; go home and go down on bended knee and worship that motion like a revered statue, carved from fine platinum and stationed in a temple.

Now, I just wonder if he can taste Gray, still on me.

Always on me. He lingers in my clothes, his mysterious scent nestling into my pockets. His touch scalds my cold skin. His smile ingrains itself behind my tongue; all that is holy. All that I know of the Gods.

"Kai."

"Hm?" he hums back once we separate, starting to get out of bed. Facing the day.

"Do you think I'm a good person?" I query shakily, the cartilage in my knees in jeopardy of disintegrating at any minute.

My husband observes me, puzzled, for a second, before a half-smile graces his sharp features. "Of course," he grins – his signature expression – again, and my synapses only remember how to pulse guilt through my brain, "You're the best person I know."

The bullet hole bleeds.

"Ready to start the day?" Kai urges cheerfully, stretching his arms and letting the vertebrae in his spine crack back into place.

My eyes drift over the man who I've wronged on every level of Hell possible. Lucifer glares dourly down on me.

But even Lucifer had once been God's favourite archangel. Lucifer knows what it feels like, to love something so much that you would plummet straight from Heaven to the fiery depths of the netherworld. To ardently adore someone so fiercely, that you would follow them straight to perdition, just to get your fix.

I glance at Kai once more. "No choice either way, is there?"

No way out. No exit route. Lucifer pinches my tongue between his filthy talons and slices it right off.

_We both made our choices, _he hisses through decaying teeth, black oil trickling down his filed canines, _and we both have to live with them. _The grease is iridescent in the fresh daylight.

"Chin up, baby," my husband offers in encouragement, giving me a quick hug from behind before proceeding to wake Mason up. I watch Kai nudge our four-year-old out of his serene slumber, and I know, without a doubt, that I am not a good person.

I once read that there is no such thing as inherent evil, only good people searching too hard.

But good, bad or an abomination, that's not what I want the answer to.

That's not the question I want to ask.

This is the question.

Do two bad people still deserve happiness?

* * *

**Author's Note: Okay, I know I have two other stories still on hold, but inspiration struck and I kind of just ran with it. I promise I still have every intention of updating and completing **_**Serendipity **_**and **_**How I Met Your Father**_**, just at a later date. Also, please note that I am, in no way, condoning cheating through writing this story. I just thought it would be really interesting to tackle this theme. Thank you so much for reading! As always, I appreciate all feedback greatly!**


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